Was BJP Leader Assaulted In Haryana? A Fact Check

A video of a fight between a group of people is being shared on social media with a claim that a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was beaten up by the public in Haryana's Sirsa. 

Several users shared the video on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) making the same claim. Archived versions of such posts can be seen here, here and here.

Screenshots of the viral posts. (Source: Facebook/X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the claim is false. The video shows a brawl between two groups of the Indian National Congress (INC). 

How did we find the truth?

On conducting a reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral video, we came across a YouTube video (archive here) published by Hindi newspaper Punjab Kesari on May 6, 2024. According to the report, the viral clip is from Sirsa, Haryana, where supporters of two different groups within the Congress party got into a physical altercation.

Several local news portals from Haryana also published the now-viral video. A Facebook page named Ambala Breaking News (archive here) published the video on May 5, and stated that it shows a fight between supporters of Congress leaders the Selja Kumari and former state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Sirsa's Samain village where elections are scheduled for May 25. Another portal named Ambala Mirror (archive here) also published the video.

We reached out to Manjit Malhotra, a reporter with the news portal, who shared similar details with us and added, "Such conflicts between the two factions have been seen in the past, but not to this extent. The incident happened in Samain village of Sirsa." Further, we were also able to geolocate the video to Samain Village, Sirsa, Haryana. We also spoke to local resident Purushottam Dutt who confirmed that the fight happened in front of his shop.

The verdict

A video of an internal fight between two factions of Haryana Congress was shared as BJP leader being beaten up in Sirsa. The incident happened in Samain village of Sirsa and is unrelated to the BJP. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.

(This story was originally published by Logically Facts, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective.)